Bashful frostbite crept on my flesh wounds. I could feel the gentle wind entering the cracked walls. My mindfulness is clinging but with my wound left untreated, I couldn’t think of any moment from now that I would be able to overcome this.

I raised my head observing the room, the place looks so old the wooden could be easily knocked and the moss spewing at the corner indicates so much that I’m in a solitary place. It’s not like I’m not used to this smell, the smell of moss, the smoke trailing outside from the cigarette at the table in front of me, the drenched jaws from blood flowing out of my wounds, not new to me, but I knew I am being in denial. Those experiences are nothing but a product of a simulation that my superior concocted. This time is for real and there’s no way I could tell how much I will last long or them to decide when to take my life.

I was told by many things of my superiors back in the Glade, some of them said to me, I’ll help you to get out of here or I’ll give you money if you pass the test, but the biggest lie I’ve ever heard is that ‘This won’t hurt, it will be easy.’

It was the time of the last year of our training. Once I finished my hand-to-hand combat training, my superior along with twenty of my comrades were ordered to take a special test. I thought that this special test she was saying will be difficult like the previous ones, where you will have to improvise a bomb or solve a puzzle to get the key before we will get drown or infiltrating a dungeon made by higher levels without getting caught. However, my expectation has betrayed me, we were put inside a white room, hours had passed but still, nothing happened. Suspicion, discontentment, speculations filled the room. Hours had passed, silence takes place, it was then, eeriness had fallen onto my shoulder.

In an instant, the room was filled with haze, we were taken in a fleeting vision into madness cascading our sanity. We were put under psychological and physiological torture. We were shown of our greatest nightmares, we experienced what it feels like to be burned alive, fell in an inconceivable height, and stung by a hundred maybe a thousand needles. Few only recovered after that test, others were listed in the medic station. Only god knows when will they recover. I, on the other hand, recovered in two weeks, and was the second one to break to it. I wonder who’s the first person to recover, but that information was concealed to us, so there’s no way to learn the name.

When I was about to fell asleep, the door open. A man greeted me with a smile, his hair looks so funny, shaggy style is way out of date.

“So, do you know who they’re working for?”

“I don’t know. Just found them hanging around with one of the escapees.”

“Okay, there’s only one way to get the information,” He chuckles, “Okay boys, do it!” He shouted, ordering the grunts to the dirty job.

When he finally left the guy that I fought before gets close to me, whispering “It isn’t personal. We have a lot of dirty jobs we must do for this country.”

“Screw you,” I said, spitting with a mix of blood on his face.

When he finally left outside, a tall man holding a knife lashes to me, as I said before, this kind of torture is easy for enough for me to endure.

“I see, you’re a tough guy.” Laid down the knife at the table and he wears black rubber gloves; he pulls out two fliers with a giant battery.

He smirks, “This is going to get dirtier if you don’t tell us who you’re working for.”

“Do your worst,” I said as if I was inviting him to try.

Ɵ

When Lance and the Hoarder go out, he investigated him, “What’re you planning to do with that guy?”

“Well, as part of our deal, I expect you to know your boundaries, but with the fruit, you showed to me, I will be considerate. You see, if you want to win a war, information is a vital element. That guy, inside there, I’m certain his working for an organization, a big one.”

“Ah-huh. What about the girl?”

“Ah, about her. I’m gonna sell her to the upcoming auction.”

“What?” Lance couldn’t believe what he just heard, rationally thinking, he thought that girl might be of use to him, maybe he could hire a scientist to investigate her bio components, but to sell her, isn’t what kind of he expected.

“Let’s say, it’s good old fashion revenge, you see Theo the king of douche, once threatened me that he will bring down my enterprise if I don’t cooperate with so…”

“So, you will plot fake information and goes around until he will bite your trap.”

“Yes.” Like a child, he naughtily grinned, “What about you? How did you find those mercenaries?”

“Ah, well. We just followed our hunch that Theo’s men are also roaming the area finding the kids. It’s easy enough to hack their radio system, so, we follow their pattern while doing our research.”

“I’m impressed, you know your toys mate. Maybe we should work together often.”

“No. This will be the last time. A deal is a deal. Now, give me the files.”

“As a man of my words, I will rightfully comply.”

He said as handed out a box full of folders and a small storage disk locked in a plastic cover.

“As a token of friendship. I added some files you interested in, records of corrupt officials, conspiring, and an act of negligence.”

When he finally left, Gary and Ina meet him in a graveyard.

“Is that it?” Ina asked looking at the box.

“Yes.”

“I hope he’s not lying. It would be a waste of time if he would.” Gary said with a hint of skepticism in his voice.

Ɵ

It was midnight when Linda running cluelessly finding her gang. She found herself at the end of the tunnel, the place is crumbled. “Oh, crap.” She mumbled.

Linda followed the end of the tunnel and what she found is the battered Ken lying on the ground.

“What the hell happened?”

“Canary’s happened.”

With that said, her eyes widened and at the end of the night the last lantern flew in the sky and the hound of a wolf is the only noticeable in the silent twilight.